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Errors and Bias in Judgment When Choosing Projects - Introduction
August 21, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings
Errors and Bias in Judgment When Choosing Projects - Introduction (#1 in the series Choosing the Wrong Portfolio of Projects)
By Miley W. Merkhofer
Why do we need decision aids? Can’t people make good choices on their own? Like many decision analysts, I was first attracted to the science of decision making as a result of reading about the errors and biases that affect people’s judgments.
Remarkably, it appears that our brains have been hard-wired to make certain errors. Hundreds of different biases have been identified and categorized, including biases that distort our judgments, that introduce errors into the estimates and forecasts that we produce, and that cause us to make the wrong choices.
If you’re not already familiar with the major results from this fascinating area, this introduction should help you to appreciate the value of formal decision-aiding tools. Without the assistance of such tools, the decisions made within organizations, including the choice of which projects to conduct, will be systematically biased. Errors and bias in judgment is the first reason that organizations choose the wrong projects.
Miley W. (Lee) Merkhofer, Ph.D., is an author and practitioner in the field of decision analysis who specializes in assisting organizations in implementing project portfolio management. He has served on advisory panels for several government agencies and has received grants and research awards for work in the area. Lee is an editor of the journal Decision Analysis.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Lee was a Partner of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he founded that organization’s capital allocation and project prioritization business practice. Lee is a founding partner of Folio Technologies LLC, a provider of web-based, project portfolio management software.
Lee received his Ph.D. in engineering economic systems from Stanford University. He is the author of the book Decision Science and Social Risk Management and co-author of the book Risk Assessment Methods..
Additional papers on project portfolio management can be found on Lee’s website, www.prioritysystem.com. E-mail: lmerkhofer@prioritysystem.com.
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